REPORT: Military investigating Judge receives file of Arsal incident

Military investigating Judge Fadi Sawan received on Tuesday the file of the latest incidents in Arsal, while military measures continue in the town in search for the criminals involved in the incident.              

Judge Sawan is expected commence interrogations with the arrested persons on charges of this incident tomorrow.                    

On the other hand, the State Commissioner to the Military court, Judge Saqr Saqr charged 34 people, 25 among them are fully identified while the remaining 9 are known by their last names or nicknames.            

The charge issued against these people includes the interception of the work of an intelligence directorate's patrol which was implementing a mission to arrest a wanted person. The charge also stipulates that the assailants were using different kinds of weapons when they attacked the patrol by opening fire at the troops with intent to kill.               

For his part, Lebanese President Michel Sleiman met on Tuesday with LAF Chief General Jean Qahwaji who informed him of the measures taken to restore security in the region and the pursuit of criminals involved in the attack against the army stressing that Arsal is not besieged by the army, but instead LAF units are deployed in and around the town

On the 1st of February 2013, LAF troops were ambushed while trying to detain fugitive, Khaled Hmeid, suspected of involvement in the 2011 kidnapping of seven Estonian tourists who were abducted in Lebanon's eastern Bekaa Valley and held for nearly four months before being released in July that year.                                                 

Some security officials have said that Hmeid crossed the border into Syria over the past months to fight with rebels trying to depose Syrian President Bashar Assad. Many in Arsal, a Sunni Muslim town, are sympathetic to Syrian rebels                                                

This as fears of a Syrian spillover are mounting in Lebanon.                                            

Khaled Hmeid was injured in the raid and subsequently succumbed to his wounds. Shortly after his capture around 80 gunmen adamant on avenging Hmeid's capture followed the LAF troops who reportedly were stuck on the road leading out of the town due to the accumulation of snow.                 

The gunmen attacked the troops leaving Major Pierre Bachaalany and Adjutant Ibrahim Zahraman for dead. The two were then taken alongside the remaining injured troops to the towns municipality and paraded in a show of celebration.